时间：6月11日 星期一晚上7:00-8:30

地点：弘文楼A206

题目：American Indian Literatures and Cultures: The Truth about Stories

演讲人：Dr. Conrad Shumaker

Dr. Conrad Shumaker has been a professor of English literature at the University of Central Arkansas for 36 years.  He got his Ph.D. from the University of California in Los Angeles, where he focused on American Literature. He also specializes in teaching American Indian culture; he has taken groups of students to the American Southwest to see the reservations and learn directly from the Native Americans living there many times. In addition, he has published a textbook about American Indian Literature for use in the classroom, one of the few of its kind. He is currently on a tour of China giving lectures on his areas of expertise. He has already given speeches in Shanghai and Xi'an, and his next stop is right here in Zhuhai. If you are curious about American Indian Culture then you are welcome to attend. 

演讲内容简介：

There is no American Indian culture. There are hundreds of different cultures speaking hundreds of different languages. When most of us think of these peoples, we see the stereotype we have developed instead of the reality, which varies widely from culture to culture.  

However, at the same time, these peoples share certain views of the world that give them more in common with each other than with the cultures of industrialized nations. A Lakota, for example, is culturally quite different from a Hopi, yet both resemble each other much more closely than they resemble mainstream Americans. After showing some differences, this talk will focus primarily on those shared views, beginning with the importance of stories in American Indian cultures. As one American Indian writer says, “The truth about stories is that’s all there is.” By listening to and discussing an American Indian story and placing it in the context of other stories, we will see how these peoples relate to the world and the beings with which they share it.